Eutelsat confident of Ka-sat/Tooway biz

Eutelsat has published some highly competitive rates for its consumer-based Tooway business, which uses its massive Ka-Sat satellite. In a fresh report on Eutelsat, bankers Morgan Stanley says the satellite operator’s rates for satellite-were “pretty punchy” and compared very well with the sort of prices and usage caps applied by the likes of British Telecom and France Telecom.

Morgan Stanley says: “Eutelsat’s broadband offer is designed to target households located in areas that are unserved and underserved by ADSL. The latest EU Digital scorecard shows that 10 million homes in the EU27 are still not broadband equipped.” That’s Eutelsat’s target market, and while Euteslat says that some of its national business-focused (that is professional usage) activity is proving a little slower to roll out (which Eutelsat says is more down to having to deal through dozens of different national re-sellers), it is pleased with the way the consumer product is being adopted.

To date Eutelsat has declined to put detailed numbers on either of these key products, but that ends on July 30th when Eutelsat will make a formal market statement as to the precise state of the market.

Nevertheless, Morgan Stanley is modifying its anticipated revenues for Eutelsat’s Ka-Sat usage. “We believe [Eutelsat’s] tone was more positive than what investors currently think about Ka-Sat. We think the market is worried about ETL radically cutting Ka-Sat’s revenue guidance – management may trim guidance on July 30th but probably not to the extent that investors fear, in our view. We forecast €61 million of sales by 2014 vs. old guidance of €100 million.”